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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

THREAT ALERT: THIS TIME IT'S IRAN

The hypocrisy and hysteria being displayed by the media right now concerning Iran, is overwhelming, yet not surprising. I don't know why anyone would trust the Mainstream media regarding war and peace issues after their collective failure on Iraq, but as Gore Vidal said, we do live in the "United States of Amnesia."

It is not clear that Iran has broken any rules, Iran has disclosed the existence of it facilities to the IAEA in the allotted time, (lets not even discuss how often we break international rules, yet still find the audacity to accuse others when they do it). Beyond that there is little evidence Iran is building nukes right now.

But lets assume that they are building nukes, which many already are assuming. Why would they do that? Probably because they are evil, defiant, and inherently dangerous and irrational. But maybe, its because they feel threatened by the US, who in the last 8 years, invaded 2 of Iran's neighboring countries, and Israel, which continues to threaten to bomb Iran quite loudly.

Of coarse more countries with nukes is not a good thing, and i believe that Iran is party to the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty, (unlike rogue nations such as Israel), but lets imagine that evidence was found that they were building nukes. Is that really a threat to the American people? Are they really so irrational and self destructive as to actually use their nukes on another country? And would it really be in our best self-interest to bomb them if it was proved that they had nukes? What would that do to oil prices, and would the bombing even work? We really don't know the answers to these questions, and it is shameful for the media to pretend like it has one scrap of credibility or wisdom regarding this issue. Anyways China will veto any new sanctions...so this is moot.

5 comments:

Actually, it is pretty clear that they have made pretty severe violations: http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2479/qom-enrichment-facility-roundup

However, I sympathize with your view that the media oversimplifies this issue and injects irrational fear into the public.

However, the idea that the possession of nuclear weapons might lead to stability in the international system is a little farfetched. It is important to look at how Iran perceives the U.S. and the West, and yes, their wish for nuclear weapons might be rational, but that doesn't mean the UN should step back and let them do as they please. We need a commitment to disarmament--a commitment that China actually understands, seeing as they produce nuclear weapons only to the point of the minimum means of reprisal. And if I remember correctly, China has only used its veto on the security council 5 or 6 times.

China has used veto on many important occasions, most recently Burma and Sundan. China does this to secure resources for the future, this is the only reason why they are helping Iran. These new sanctions proposed will be no different, china will vote against them. Why would they help Israel/US?

Yeah, I definitely agree that Iran going nuclear is evidence of rational behavior in response to perceived threats, and that as a rational actor it will probably be able to be deterred from actually using them as has been the case of every other nuclear power, but given the political instability in that country and the presence of powerful and violent non-state actors in the area, the world would be better off without a nuclear Iran (except, of course, Iran).

And of course, think of how much less complicated the situation in Pakistan would be if they didn't have nuclear weapons. A regime with nukes is like a financial institution that gets "too big to fail". In the end it costs us money.